Best gift EVER!

I was thinking about the best gift I've ever received. I'm fortunate; I've received a lot of good gifts. But the best was probably the desk I got when I was 10. I had wanted my own desk for soooooooo long, and never thought that my parents could afford it. My parents made me believe that it just wasn't a possibility. I gave up hope. 

Then, Christmas Eve, it was snowing, but my uncle Tony showed up with his truck, and he and my dad started hauling a piece of furniture into the house. I was totally confused because we were supposed to be eating dinner and opening gifts. Why was Tony there and why were they unloading stuff? Then my dad uncovered the desk and for a moment I was sad, because I thought it was for my mom. She didn't even want a desk! Then my dad said it was for me. I was still doubtful. He insisted. Once they put it up in my bedroom, I started to believe. I spent the entire night opening and closing drawers, figuring out where each pencil and piece of paper I owned would go. I couldn't imagine ever having enough to fill all the drawers. I carved my name into a tiny corner of the desk, so I could be sure it was mine, and could never go back to the store. I can still remember, so vividly, what it felt like to know that desk was all mine. 

I still have the desk in my bedroom and still use it. I should probably invest in something a little bigger, to accommodate a laptop and monitor, but I can't imagine getting rid of my desk. I don't think anyone would ever call me sappy, but I guess there are a few things I'm sentimental about. 

Next best gift? Probably the sleeping bag that looked like blue jeans. My brother and I used to "camp out" on our living room floor sometimes, especially when we had a babysitter. One time, when we were about 6 and 8, my older cousin, Nancy, was babysitting. My brother was kind of a control freak and had to have his sleeping bag just right. No corner un-straightened. He'd crawl all over the bag, smoothing down wrinkles until it was just right, then he'd very gingerly climb in. 

So Nancy would flip up a corner. 

Chris would huff and make a huge deal of climbing out of the bag, crawl to the corner and begin his process of smoothing out the sleeping bag.

Once he was ensconced inside, Nancy would flip up another corner. 

Chris would scowl and sigh and crawl out again and make a big production of making it just perfect. Then he'd eye her carefully as he crawled inside.

She did it one more times, and Chris was about to completely lose his shit. We were trying not to laugh. She stopped because he looked like he was about to cry. Chris, you were such a huge OCD baby. 

[If you look really closely, you can see "Kim" carved in the corner.]

I am thankful for ... Volume 1

It's the season to be thankful. In order to get credit for being a "thankful person" I'm publicly posting my gratefulness here, and will continue to add things as I think of them throughout the week. These five are top-of-mind today:

I am thankful that my house is not haunted. After watching Paranormal Activity 3 and 4, as well as The Conjuring over the weekend, I think this is an appropriate thing to be thankful for. God, what a pain in the ass it must be to have 'haints in your house. And it's always poor people who can't afford to walk away from their house. Even though my house was built in 1921. Given that it's been around nearly a century, you'd think there'd be a few souls wandering around. But I don't get any weird feelings, have any strange dreams, or feel any strange cold spots. My dogs don't bark at weird things and they're not afraid of the basement. In fact, I can't keep the little shits out of the basement because they know that's where I keep the dog food. So I'm very lucky that my house is free of paranormal activity. but believe me, I don't care how much I still owe on my mortgage - I'd leave my house in a fucking heartbeat if I saw a door shut on its own.

 

Along similar lines, I am thankful that I live in a state where we don't have bugs or other creepy crawlies (e.g., flying cockroaches, giant spiders, snakes, scorpions). The show Infested! makes me feel very aware of how a person can become a prisoner in their own home if something else takes over. You think humans are tat the top of the food chain? Try telling that to the fucking BEES LIVING IN THE WALLS! Or the BATS LIVING IN THE WALLS. Or the SNAKES LIVING IN THE WALLS. I think below-zero weather is an ok trade-off for living cockroach-free. 

 

I am thankful for having a job where I get to write and be creative and work with people I genuinely like to be around! I can't imagine how awful it would be to have to spend 8+ hours a day with people you couldn't stand. Don't get me wrong though. If I won the lottery I'd still leave in a second.

 

I am thankful for being healthy, though I'm far from the paragon of health. I should exercise more and eat less fried cheese ... I have terrible seasonal allergies ... I get migraines sometimes ... But all of these are manageable. They don't destroy my life. I've never had to deal with cancer or chronic pain and illness, like so many people I know. People who take much better care of themselves than I do. I feel guilty sometimes. Apparently not guilty enough to get my ass to the gym. But believe me, I know how lucky I am to have the petty problems I have.

I am thankful that I have satellite TV. Who are these people that don't have cable? Or worse - who don't even own a TV!? Why am I friends with people like you? Not owning a TV doesn't make you smarter - it means you're probably woefully out of touch with  pop culture. There was a time when I was embarrassed to say that I watched "The Real Housewives of ..." No more apologies. Watching TV means I'm connected to the zeitgeist. Or maybe I AM the zeitgeist. 

Things I'm excited about now

Things I am excited about at this very moment: 

• The weather: I love Fall weather because it means hoodies! And hats! And opaque tights!And black turtleneck sweaters! (I should add black turtleneck sweaters to my prior list of things I can't stop buying. I have like 20 of them.)
• Halloween: The BEST holiday. Don't even argue with me on this one. Even Jesus thinks it's the best. Trust me.
• The Voice: I love this show because I feel like the coaches are very honest and supportive - as coaches should be. It's not like Idol or X Factor where they are critical without giving any valuable advice. The Voice coaches really seem like they care and would help their team members even after the show. They even follow and tweet them encouragement during the show, ferchrissakes! The whole thing gives me very good feelings.
• Butternut squash, as I am at this time every year. I don't grow it in my garden because it gets out of control and I have to try to mow around it, but I think it's my favorite vegetable.

Speaking of vegetables (and fruits) I hate the following: baby corn, water chestnuts, beets (thanks for that, grandma), cauliflower (sorry, they smell like farts when you cook them), mandarin oranges (aka baby oranges), maraschino cherries (what ARE these made of and why are they so different from regular cherries??!!), pears and green melon.

On the other hand, I love asparagus (yes, it makes my pee smell), brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, artichokes, bok choy, parsnips and other assorted "adult" vegetables like that.

On lists ...

I love making lists. I'll probably have a lot of "lists" posts, depending on what's on my mind.

Stuff that I can't seem to stop buying, even though I have too many of them:

• Notebooks. I like having a notebook accessible to me at all times. In case I need to do something, or see something cool that I want to remember.
• Pens. My favorite right now is the Pilot Precise V5 rolling ball pen, in purple or green. Colored pens are the best! Huge thank you to my coworker, Sara, who introduced me to this brand when she historically changed my life by borrowing me her green pen and not letting me keep it.
• Black pumps. Even though I probably have two dozen different kinds of black pumps - different heel heights, pointy-toe, round-toe, ankle straps, etc. - if I see a new pair, I want them. I rationalize this by thinking, "They're basic black pumps, they go with everything, I'll wear them!!" And I do. But I probably don't need to buy any more.
• Cookbooks. I love food, and I like the idea of cooking, but I hate cleaning up and don't own a dishwasher, so cooking is kind of a chore. Nonetheless, I love finding recipes. The first thing I do when I get a new cookbook is sit down with some post-it flags and flag every recipe I want to try. If it's one I need to try soon, I put the flag at the top of the page. If it's just interesting, the flag is on the side. In addition to cookbooks, I'm always printing off recipes from online and pinning them on Pinterest. I file my printed recipes in a filing folder system. I'm very organized about this, you can see.
• Le Creuset cast iron pots. I have them in a few colors, but I think I like blue the best. Sur la Table has them on sale sometimes, especially around Christmas. The reason I keep buying these is that I think they'll miraculously inspire me to cook more of the recipes I've been archiving (see above.)
• Used books. I adore books. I started reading really young, and devoured words. I'd read anything and everything I could get my hands on - books, newspapers, magazines, the yellow pages, the cereal box. If I wasn't reading, I felt antsy and incomplete. I had the only parents in the world that would yell at me to "stop reading and go DO something." I'm running out of room for them, but books are something I'll always make more room for. My dream is that someday I'll have a house big enough for a giant library with a fireplace and beautiful, dark wood shelves filled with my books. I always wondered about people who had matching bound books in their libraries. I recently discovered where they get them from - T.J. Maxx. And they're not really books! Just facades. My library won't be very matchy, but at least they'll be real books.
• Dog treats. Peanut and Bacon are both rescues, and they deserve to be spoiled with treats, toys, hugs, pets and clothing. Sometimes I wonder if they think to themselves, "Yeah, we're pretty lucky to live with this lady now.She's good to us." Probably not, because they're dogs. :)

ok, I'm back

It's been almost a year since I've blogged. I started this blog mainly to document my last vacation - to Barcelona and Paris - and have a nice way to share photos and stories with friends and family. But I've realized that I really miss writing. Not the corporate communications and talking points and speechwriting stuff I do for work, but something where I can be more creative. Hopefully, just the act of writing for myself will make me a better writer at work. 

Oh, who am I kidding. I just want somewhere that gives me more than 140 characters to bitch. 

I'm not going to tackle anything very interesting here. If you're looking for challenging political discourse or insightful cultural critique, look elsewhere. I care about what I'm going to eat next, my dogs, my family, and celebrity gossip. In that order.

I realized today that I have a guilty conscience. Interestingly, I don't feel guilty about big things. Like, I don't understand why people are so horrified by cannibalism. I don't want to eat anyonee proactively, but if I were stranded on a desert island, I don't think I'd feel any  qualms about eating someone if I hwas super hungry. Like, on day three. Seriously. If I were stuck in an elevator and I was hungry, I'd probably be tempted to eat someone. Before they ate me.

I've seen these documentaries about the Donner party and how horrified their descendants are and how it's thrown their family name into shame, blah, blah. Who cares? It happened so many generations ago. They were dying, people were dying left and right. If they hadn't done it, everyone would have died. I understand that when the party was found, they probably felt kind of weird about it. But several generations later? What do you have to be judgemental about. You wouldn't be here if they hadn't eaten their neighbors.

On the other hand, I accidentally threw half a brownie in a "recycling-only" bin tonight and as soon as I realized it, I felt really guilty. Because either someone will have to sort through that bin and pull out my brownie, or they'll just throw out the whole bin because my brownie tainted everything in it. Either way, I'm a bad, bad person.

I felt even more guilty when I crossed the street and saw two people and a beagle with a sign asking for money for food. And I regretted that I took a giant brownie and threw away half. I could have given them the other half! I was still thinking about this as I was driving home. So yeah, I have kind of messed up priorities.

Eiffel Tower and Champs-Elysées

I opted to only visit the second level because I did the top level on another trip and really, you can't get good pictures from way up there--all the buildings look the same. Plus, I hate waiting in line. The second level is still really high up, as I found out when I decided to be a hero and take the stairs on the way down.

You're so used to seeing the Eiffel Tower in photos, postcards, in movies, and even walking around Paris, you catch glimpses of it. But until you're standing right under it, you don't realize how solid, how massive it really is. It's amazing. The French hated it when it was built, but it's a pretty elegant look for something made of tons and tons of steel girders. I believe the French have moved on to hating Tour Montparnasse, which is hideous and really does f up the skyline. At night, they light up the tower in lights and every half hour, they put on a sparkly light show. Very classy. But what can I say, I love a light show!!

Cute little flower shop on Rue Cler...

God, I hate the Champs-Elysées. Crowded, touristy, absolutely nothing authentically Parisian about it. International chain stores and crappy, overpriced cafès. I spent only enough time here to get a pic of the Arc de Triomphe.

Oh, and to visit the flagship Sephora, a.k.a. Mecca. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful???

A few random pics from when I was walking around the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars: kids in a go-cart race, random statue, and a cool art deco building that caught my eye.

Proof that not all French people have good taste:

Notre Dame and the Iles

The Île St. Louis and Île de la Cité are islands that sit smack dab in the middle of the Seine and are small, perfect for exploring. St. Louis doesn't really have any monuments, just lots of shops and restaurants, including the best ice cream in Paris, at Berthillon. I wandered around St. Louis, stopping for a crepe and ice cream, checking out the cheese shops, and taking pics of the Seine.

The Île de la Cite is packed with monuments--Notre Dame, the Conciergerie, Sainte-Chapelle. I've been to all of them before, so didn't stand in line, but got some pics from outside.

Some of the metro stations have cool art deco signs:

Cimetière du Père Lachaise

This is the largest cemetery in Paris--I think the guide said over 7 million people are buried here--and it doesn't look like any cemetery I've ever seen before. You cannot imagine what a jumbled-up mess of tombs it is. The graves are all different sizes, from small, flat granite stones, to enormous, elaborate gothic crypts. There's a huge crematorium with rows and rows of ashes stacked one upon another. Even in the tombs, families will have the ashes or bodies stacked to save the cost of buying aother plot. People bring ashes to scatter in the grassy parts here and you can see all this grey dust. Many famous people are buried here--Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Richard Wright, Chopin, Rossini.

The three most visited crypts are Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and a fellow named Victor Noir. Victor was shot because he spoke out against Napoleon, there was public outrage, and the bronze figure on his grave was created in his honor. This tomb is one of the most popular because there's a legend that if you rub his crotch, it will bless you with fertility. According to my tour guide, if you touch his toe, you'll have one baby; if you touch both toes, two. Fertility is not a blessing I have use for right now but the guide REFUSED to let me leave without rubbing the crotch and touching his toes. So if I'm magically, improbably pregnant in a few months, here's the reason.

So this guide, he just comes up to me as I'm looking at my map and tells me a shortcut to get to the Chopin grave. So I take his advice, and I run into him like 10 minutes later and he asks me if I've seen Marcel Marceau's spot. I'm like, ''No,'' because I know he's a famous name in France, but I care about mimes. Nobody does. Except the French, of course. But this guy is insistent that I have to see it, ''shortcut, shortcut'' is what he says. He's all about shortcuts. Basically, he ends up being my personal tour guide, showing me all the important graves, and giving me lots of cool stories. He never mentioned a fee, though I knew that I'd probably get the hard sell at the end, but I actually really valued his (22 years of) experience because this place is enormous and crazy and impossible to navigate, even with a map. I never would have gotten to all the graves I wanted to see, or learned the little factoids. Some highlights:

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were lovers, and allowed to be buried in the same plot. One side of the grave has Gertrude's name; the other Alice's.

Edith Piaf

Okay, out of respect for my tour guide, I took a pic of Marcel Marceau's grave. The interesting thing he told me, was that the French don't ever visit their family graves. They'll do it once a year, on Nov. 1, All Saint's Day, but they'll bring plastic flowers so they don't have to come back for another year. Jewish people don't bring flowers; out of respect they place rocks on the tombs. So this grave, and Gertrude Stein's above, has lots of rocks and pebbles.

There were several memorials in the cemetery, to each of the WWII concentration camps, to those killed in airline crashes. This was the Auschwitz memorial:

Before I got to Oscar Wilde's grave my guide insisted that I put on lipstick and I was like, ''I don't even have lipstick in my bag'' and he looked so disappointed in me. When we got to the tomb, I saw why. It's another custom to kiss Oscar Wilde's grave and leave a lipstick print. So I dug out some lip gloss and let him take my photos. It's disgusting; but since I still have this shitty cold, I figured that I'm probably more germy than the tomb. There are lipstick prints all over the tomb. Someone hacked off the rock genitals of the stone figure on the grave, for good luck? There are some seriously crazy, superstitious people out there. After dark, police dogs guard the three most famous tombs to keep people from violating them. And speaking of violating, they could use some police in other parts of the cemetery to keep an eye out for people like the guy I saw ''violating himself ''on one of the graves. Yeah. (Andrew, I'm so sorry you had to read that. :) The ashes of one of Oscar Wilde's lovers is also buried in the tomb, but they were not allowed to put the man's name on the tomb, because it was taboo at that time.

Jim Morrison's tomb, which is a lot cleaner than the last time I visted. Last time, there was graffiti on the tombs surrounding it, candle wax everywhere, and hippies lounging about. Supposedly, they have a guard watching this one all the time, but I didn't see any guards, and there weren't even many people visiting the site.

Not sure whose this is, but I thought it was pretty.

It was interesting that many of the most rich and famous people had the most understated graves. There were a few huge, majorly expensive graves the size of a house, but names I didn't recognize. Many of the older tombs looked like a little outhouse, with a small sculpture of a saint inside, and a little stained glass window. Many had the doors rusted off and were totally in disrepair. The guide said that they're tearing down the older ones all the time because families can't keep up with the cost of maintaining the plots, which is thousands of Euros each year for even a very small plot.

My crazy guide, who actually did shake me down at the end, though it was well worth it for the time it saved me wandering around with a map. Our conversation went like this:

''You know, I am usually paid for this. I do tours here for groups, usually.''

''I'm sure you do, thank you for showing me around,'' handing him 5 Euros, which actually isn't much for the work he did.

''People like me more than that.''

I laugh and hand him another 5.

''You like me 20?''

''No.''

Musee Rodin: All kinds of naked

The Musee Rodin is my favorite museum, so I took pictures of just about everything. I'll won't post all of them, but I've been there thrice now, and every time I am blown away. I love that many of the pieces are outside, in a lovely garden area, which makes it easy to imagine that the figures were actually captured in a moment of movement. Lots of people have a drawing pad out, sketching the pieces and I try to look over their shoulders, nonchalantly, so they don't notice me peeking.

Above is a close-up of The Gates of Hell which is inspired by Dante's Inferno. It's very detailed, and when you look closely, very gruesome and disturbing.

This piece below is Ugolino and it has a good story. Brief version: Ugolino was imprisoned in a tower in Pisa with his sons and grandsons where they were starved to death. As the last survivor, Ugolino ate the flesh of his sons and grandsons. Ugolino shows up in The Gates of Hell and also in this separate piece; where he's crawling over his sons.

My favorite piece, L'Idole Eternelle:

The sculpture garden:

What my dad would be doing if my mom ever dragged him to the Musee Rodin: